Little Bad Wolf

Little Bad Wolf

By

Peter Reynolds

In memory of my father who thought me to love books.

Thanks to Jon Wigmore, Susan Starling and Kevin Lossner for their invaluable help with editing this story.

Smashwords Edition

© 2013 Peter Reynolds

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Table of Contents

PART 1 – THE TRUE STORY OF THE BIG BAD WOLF

CHAPTER 1 DANCING WITH ELVIS

CHAPTER 2 THE FIRST DAY OF APRIL

CHAPTER 3 TOMORROW IS A LONG TIME

CHAPTER 4 NO VISITORS FOR BIG BAD WOLF

CHAPTER 5 THE COURT

CHAPTER 6 THE PLAN

CHAPTER 7 THE NOISE-BOX

CHAPTER 8 LEARNING TO SPEAK

CHAPTER 9 TROUBLE WITH A CAPITAL T

CHAPTER 10 CAUGHT

CHAPTER 11 LITTLE BAD WOLF - TV STAR

PART 2 SCHOOL DAYS

CHAPTER 12 THE WOLF MUST GO

CHAPTER 13 CHILDREN SHOULD BE SEEN AND NOT HEARD

CHAPTER 14 WHO’S AFRAID OF THE LITTLE BAD WOLF?

CHAPTER 15 OVERHEARD

CHAPTER 16 NO NUDITY PLEASE

CHAPTER 17 ROCK FASHION

CHAPTER 18 ANOTHER NOTICE

CHAPTER 19 ELOCUTION TEST

CHAPTER 20 RADIO PROBLEMS

CHAPTER 21 I HAVE BEEN WATCHING YOU

CHAPTER 22 CORRECT EATING HABITS

CHAPTER 23 THE DEBATE

PART 3 KIDNAPPED

CHAPTER 24 NO SCHOOL TODAY

CHAPTER 25 THE SEARCH

CHAPTER 26 CAPTURED

CHAPTER 27 ESCAPE

CHAPTER 28 THE RETURN OF THE BIG BAD WOLF

Part 1 – The True Story of the Big Bad Wolf

Chapter 1 Dancing with Elvis

The other wolves were all of the same opinion. Big Bad Wolf and his pack were a complete mess. They did everything wrong. Some said they must have some human blood with the silly things they do. Whenever they heard music they would stop to listen to it. Whoever heard of a wolf who listens to music? One wolf said she had visited Madame, as everyone called Mrs Bad Wolf, and they were dancing. Dancing like human dance! Who would have thought that a wolf could do that? According to this witness, Madame and Big Bad Wolf and Little Bad Wolf were dancing to some awful noise. They told her it was very popular with humans. There were also those T-shirts she ‘collected’. Madame had a small collection of funny human clothing. She collected T-shirts with pictures of pop stars on them. Who would have thought a wolf would want a T-shirt?

Their pack was also a mess. It was a very small pack, the two of them, Little Bad Wolf and the two aunts, Martha and Matilda. All the other packs in the forest had at least ten wolves and two had sixteen. It was rumoured that one of the aunts was as sane as any other wolf in the forest but no one knew which aunt.

In addition to the fact that the Bad Wolf pack was a mess - and not just any old mess but the biggest mess which a wolf pack could ever be - the other wolves were also agreed that you were very unlikely to meet finer company or more decent wolves in this or any other forest. They were a mess - but a glorious mess. The Bad Wolves were kind decent wolves, if a bit eccentric. Every wolf in the forest knew the first place to hide if they were being hunted by humans was the Bad Wolves’ den. Many of the other wolves worried that their antics would get them into trouble.

Only last week they had seen a door of a cottage which belonged to a human called Granny Hood. It was wide open and music coming from it. It was Elvis, said Big Bad Wolf when he was telling the story to a lot of other wolves who had never heard of Elvis and had only a vague idea what music or dancing was. We couldn’t just leave it, said Big Bad Wolf. "We had to go inside and once inside … well, we danced. It turned out that the door had been open because Granny Hood was expecting her grand-daughter and she had just gone upstairs for a snooze. A very, very deep snooze as it happened. Her grand-daughter Little Red Riding Hood heard the music and the racket of two large wolves trying to do a dance which was called ‘The Twist’. Instead of going into the cottage she looked inside through the window and saw the two wolves where she expected to see her granny. She ran to find the first person she could find. It happened that this was the wood cutter.

Come on, shouted the wood cutter. Let’s get these wolves before they kill your granny. Little Red Riding Hood had not even thought of such a thing and she was in a terrible panic. She started shouting, Quick! Quick! at the wood cutter. He got even more excited and was shouting about how we was going to kill those horrible wolves.

The two wolves were making a lot of noise when they danced. Wolves do not go in for graceful waltzes. However, despite the noise of their dancing and the music, they still heard the wood cutter and Little Red Riding Hood shouting as they raced towards the cottage.

The two wolves fled as soon as they realised what was happening. The wood cutter tried his best to catch them. He even threw his axe at them but they were too fast and outran him. The wood cutter was very disappointed that he did not catch them. He was even sadder when he discovered that the wolves had not caused damage. He was disappointed that he had no excuse to hunt them. How he hated these protected species! He swore to himself that he would soon get those wolves.

The only effect of the two wolves was that afternoon Granny Hood had a dream Elvis Presley was trying to kiss her, and she was telling him that he should behave himself. Even that was not unusual, as Granny Hood had been having dreams about Elvis for the last fifty years. In most of these dreams he was trying to kiss her. Everyone laughed when Big Bad Wolf told them the story. His stories were always very funny. Some of the older wolves said they knew this wood cutter, and he was bad news. They said some humans were just mean and dangerous. They liked to hunt and to kill wolves. They would say that something awful had happened, such as farm animals were attacked, and they would use this as an excuse to attack wolves. They said the woodcutter was usually one of the humans that went hunting wolves. They said he will make a tale of this event too and he will be a hero saving Little Red Riding Hood and Granny Hood, and the only way he can do that is by making Big Bad Wolf and Madame look very big, very bad and very dangerous. Big Bad Wolf did not even worry about this for a full day. He just seemed to decide that nothing was going to happen. That was two weeks ago, and he had now forgotten about it completely.

Chapter 2 The First Day of April

Today was the first day of April, and Little Bad Wolf was expecting it to be one of the best days of her life. It was Big Bad Wolf’s birthday and they were planning to have a party. Usually Little Bad Wolf’s parents got up early every morning, but on this morning they were sleeping late and planning a very relaxed start to the party day. Little Bad Wolf was too excited to stay in bed. She knew that her parents rarely got to sleep late and it was not fair to wake them. She also knew that the party would not start until they got up. She tried to resist the temptation to wake them. Each time she saw them and heard their snores she wanted to pull at them so that they would wake. She wanted to shout or jump, anything which would get them out of this sleep. She also knew that whatever she did, her parents would not be very pleased to be awoken on the one day of the year when they slept late.

In order to get away from the temptation of waking them, Little Bad Wolf decided to go outside. It was a cold but beautiful day. She noticed that it was a bit noisier than usual but this did not worry her. It was just human doing things. Humans, thought Little Bad Wolf, always seem to have to do something and would benefit from being more like wolves or dogs. It was a beautiful day, and those human were parking a lot of dark blue vans along the road near the forest where their den was.

It did seem strange there were a lot of men dressed in black, with large dogs on leads. Little Bad Wolf had never seen a gun before, but she guessed that this was what the men were carrying. She also realized that the men were policemen. At last she had a reason to wake her parents. She went back to then and almost shouted, Mum, Dad, what are all those men dressed in black doing in our forest? There are police in big black vans. They have guns and dogs.

What? said Madame, very alarmed.

Ha ha ha, said Big Bad Wolf. This is brilliant.

What do you mean, brilliant, said Madame.

You fell for it, he said. Well done, Little. Lots of vans, lots of dogs, lots of police. Very funny.

This might be very serious, said Madame.

What date is today? he said.

Madame and Big Bad Wolf then